CANADA's largest city has a myriad of islands to explore says our writer, who goes kayaking on Lake Ontario

I am kayaking through still green waters overhung by willow trees on Centre Island. A mallard glides alongside, oblivious to the gentle swoosh of my paddle. Above, a blue heron descends gently to the bank.

All around me is silence, yet I am barely a mile away from the biggest city in Canada, at Toronto Islands on Lake Ontario.

"New York, run by the Swiss," was how actor Peter Ustinov described Toronto back in the 1970s but the city is rapidly shedding its conservative reputation.

In fact, Toronto is booming, as evidenced by its chic restaurants, innovative architecture and an epic construction project that will soon see one end of the harbour lined with new museums, bars and parkland.

The previous day I had walked along the city's bustling Younge and Jarvis Streets with their industrial-chic coffee shops, honking yellow cabs and throngs of stylishly suited office workers.

I had to go only one or two blocks before I found myself in quiet, residential boulevards with immaculate flowerbeds, red-brick townhouses, vintage clothes stores and tiny street stalls selling homemade maple syrup and artisan breads.

I also discovered Casa Loma, a medieval-style castle built in the 19th century by millionaire Sir Henry Pellatt, complete with turrets, hidden passageways and a dragon sculpture which, should you ring the bell, gives access to a secret garden blooming with hibiscus and perennials.

The interior is equally impressive with a Great Hall, complete with hammer-beam ceiling, a conservatory decorated in pink and green marble and mahogany stables accessed by an underground passage. If some of the rooms seem strangely familiar it is because the castle has been used as a location in such films as X-Men and Cocktail.

However, the most jaw-dropping interior has to be Frank Gehry's makeover of the Art Gallery of Toronto with its huge expanse of billowing glass, like a ship slowly passing through the city centre.

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We left our kayaks and hired bikes to explore the island's car-free paths, passing lily-covered lakes

Try Auntie's and Uncle's on College Street with its gourmet sandwiches, tacos and omelettes, or Terroni on Queen Street West, beloved by locals for its thin-crust pizzas and homemade ravioli.

My favourite was Jamie Kennedy Kitchens on Church Street, a wine bar with an open kitchen, in which Canadian TV chef Jamie and his team use local ingredients to produce Ontario lamb and chicken and jambon blanc cob salads.

I had one more activity lined up for the afternoon, the CN Tower, which recently began an Edgewalk, 1,200ft above the street. Clad in a spectacularly ugly red boiler suit and clutching for dear life to my safety rope, I shuffled very slowly along a narrow metal grille around the edge of the tower for 45 minutes, watched by the crowds below.

Once I had regained some sense of calm, I looked down and was rewarded by a spectacular view of Toronto's islands and the vast expanse of Lake Ontario.

The next morning, after drinking in the sublime lake views from the harbour-front West Inn Harbour Castle hotel, a 38-storey colossus of spacious rooms, furnished in mahogany, I strolled down to the harbour to meet my kayak guide and we set off on the 20-minute journey across the waters to the collection of sandbars, islets and bird sanctuaries that make up the Toronto Islands.

At Ward's Island, we left our kayaks and hired bikes to explore the island's car-free paths, passing lily-covered lakes, deserted sandy beaches (one of which is "clothing optional"), a clapboard artist's studio, an old lighthouse and a small residential community across a footbridge on the nearby Algonquin Island.

The astonishing, uninterrupted view of the city's skyline is one to savour in a city which might not hit the headlines like New York and Chicago do but still has the ability to dazzle and delight.